function __construct($args)
{
$numArgs = sizeof($args);
switch ($numArgs)
{
case 1:
if(isset($args['a']))
{
$this->SetA($args['a']);
} else {
die(“Parameter should be ‘a’”);
}
break;
default: die(“Should inform parameter ‘a’”);
}
}

This is what I thinking about. i read this and could not figure out why I suddenly needed to write this bit of code.

http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/content/totally-useless-php-code-written-in-beer.html#comment-1018

I’ve always used func_num_args() and func_get_args() to pull this off. You can use a switch or if/else to call another initialization method based on the number and type of arguments passed.

Having said that, what you mentioned reminds me a lot of the configuration array methodology I see in the Zend Framework. Many class constructors in ZFW allow you to pass either a Zend_Config object or an associative array of options, rather than a long and confusing list of parameters.

You can make this method all the more powerful by creating a “defaults” array and using array_merge() to apply any defaults to the user’s configuration that they didn’t explicitly set.

I’ve adopted this method in my own programming for initialization of any class that requires more than 2 or 3 initialization parameters.

You could also use func_get_args(), although I’m not sure how references would be handled, and the code would be less ledgible.

keep it up!